


It Could Have Been Us

by hayjolras



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayjolras/pseuds/hayjolras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one / 'Cause most of us are bitter over someone." -- Daughter, "Youth"</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Could Have Been Us

They met when they were thirteen.

Cosette slid into a seat in the very back of the room, determined to make herself as small as possible, so no one would notice her; but, between the curly blonde hair and vulture-like students mingling into the classroom, it was impossible for her to remain unseen. Though no one talked to her, she could see the hands over covered mouths, hiding words strung into sentences that would turn into assumptions. She could feel the short, shifted gazes in her direction as she sat, digging her nail into the eraser of her pencil.

When the bell rang, no one sat near her, creating a small island of desks to her right, left, and front. She was stranded on a deserted island, a Napoleon in exile.

Éponine walked in at least fifteen minutes late, maybe even more. It was as if she planned it, because she swung open the door as soon as Mademoiselle began talking about tardiness. She quipped something to the teacher, who looked down at her disapprovingly while the other students laughed.

Cosette bit her lip carefully, wanting to laugh but not ready to anger her teacher on the first day.

Éponine took her time strolling down the aisle. There were a few seats in the front that were available, but she skimmed by those, letting her fingers run smoothly over the surface on each wooden-topped desk. She was olive-skinned and thin, with black hair that would probably be straight if someone put a brush to it several times. She looked both older and younger than all the students, for she had the scrawny body of a child, but the face of an older woman. It was all in the expression, see. Her eyes had seen much, maybe too much for a girl of fourteen, and her mouth was set in a straight line. It reminded Cosette of the heart monitor of a dead person. She wondered vaguely if Éponine’s smile ever sprang back to life suddenly, exposing all of her teeth and surprising everyone who saw.

Éponine, in fact, was the first person to catch Cosette off guard, still skimming the desks carefully when she noticed her in the back of the room. Her dark eyes met Cosette’s blue ones, and they passed something to each other, though Cosette wasn’t sure what. All she knew was that her heart was pounding, her palms were sweaty, and she half wished the desks around her would serve as a moat.

But they didn’t, and Éponine casually made her way toward her, choosing to take the seat in front of Cosette, rather beside her, so Cosette got to look at her tangled hair until the bell for lunch blared through the speaker above the door. When it did, Éponine turned in her seat, introduced herself, and invited Cosette to each lunch with her.

It was there, in the cafeteria not twenty minutes later, that she saw Éponine smile for the first time, and her assumptions were correct. Though her teeth were slightly crooked and a bit yellow, it reached her ears, dimpling her cheeks in the process. A few kids surrounding their table even stopped to stare. Clearly, Éponine’s smile was a rare thing. And it was infectious.

Even better, though, Cosette had been the one to put it there, when she told Éponine the story of how her father had gotten lost trying to get the two of them to the new house.

Their friendship grew from there. The first year, Cosette got to watch Éponine during class, instead of focusing on her lessons. Éponine was fidgety, constantly crossing and uncrossing her legs, drumming her fingers. On top of that, she had a big mouth with a lot to say, constantly raising her hand, sometimes never bothering to wait until the teacher called on her.

They were inseparable within two weeks of their meeting. They were constantly seen together in the hallway, demanded that they work together in group projects. They shared lockers, wrote tiny, carefully folded notes and hid them in each other’s notebooks, and were constantly seen after school together, sitting so close that their teachers joked in class that the pair were attached at the hip. It was Éponine who gave Cosette her first cigarette to smoke; it was Cosette who, when winter set in, took Éponine ice skating for the very first time. Éponine was often seen coming to school with Cosette, as she would sleep over the night before.

Cosette knew about Éponine’s parents and how they hurt her, and how she hated them, and her bedroom window was always unlocked in the event that Éponine needed a place to stay, which, more often than not, she did. Éponine would somehow manage to get herself onto the porch roof, walking up and opening Cosette’s window stealthily, climbing through the window quite gracefully, especially for a girl whose limbs seemed too long for her body, as if she shot up suddenly and wasn’t sure how to control them yet.

Éponine, in turn, knew about Cosette’s mother, and while Éponine was not the best at comforting people, Cosette found that talking to Éponine about it gave her a certain kind of peace. Éponine had even gone to the cemetery with her one Saturday afternoon when Cosette was feeling particularly upset about her mother. They walked their, hand in hand, and Éponine helped Cosette pick flowers along the way, which they laid on the small headstone quietly.

It was then that Cosette knew she’d fallen for Éponine. They were a little older now, Cosette having just turned fifteen, and every time she looked at Éponine, or felt their arms graze, or saw that mischievous smile, or heard that harsh laugh, she fell that much deeper, as if someone were digging below her, allowing her to slip down.

But unrequited love was bitter. Éponine started taking her to parties, which she didn’t mind, but she’d constantly see Éponine go off with some guy, sometimes a girl, and the next day, when Éponine would ring the doorbell, still in the same clothes she donned the night before, she always had a new story about someone she’d hooked up with.

And every time, Cosette felt a pang of jealousy, because that someone was never her.

Though she supposed that, maybe, that was for the best. She didn’t want to kiss Éponine or fool around with her while she was drunk. It wasn’t that she didn’t like drunk Éponine, but Cosette wanted it to be real, something memorable, not something brought on my severe boredom and intoxication. Because Éponine was bored a lot; never with Cosette, it seemed, but usually with life in general. Unlike Cosette, she had no idea what she wanted to do, or who she wanted to be, or what she wanted to do with life. And she never seemed to ponder those questions; the only thing she seemed to worry about was where the money for her next carton of cigarettes would come from.

Cosette loved Éponine because she was real. While Cosette oftentimes found herself shying away from the person she knew she was, Éponine was always very sure of herself, even if she didn’t know about who she would become. She rolled with the punches, took it in stride, was honest with Cosette about whether or not those jeans made Cosette’s butt look nice.

When she was with Éponine, she felt real.

Yet still, they kept getting older, and Cosette kept falling deeper, despite the few people she casually saw, casually hooked up with, usually meeting them through Éponine herself. The truth was that, at the end of the day, lying alone in her bed, it was Éponine Cosette thought of, and it was Éponine who she cherished wrapping her arms around on the nights when she would crash and Cosette’s place. (This happened more often as they grew up, as the fights with Éponine’s parents often became more severe and much more violent; Cosette, a handful of times, had to help wash Éponine’s wounds, or put ice to a black eye.) It was Éponine, always Éponine.

It was one particularly sunny day when the girls were out, sitting on their own stomping ground -- the short, brick wall that separated their old school from the woods behind it, that Éponine broke the news.

They were sitting on that pretty useless wall, Éponine straddling it, and Cosette sitting precariously, her legs crossed into a pretzel. They were both smoking; it was the end of the pack for Éponine, but for Cosette, it was a casual cigarette, one of the rare times she ever accepted Éponine’s offer.

Éponine inhaled deeply, leaning her head back and puffing out her breath out into the air, and the breeze carried it away, leaving the smell of partially stale smoke in it’s wake. Cosette took shallow breaths, as she was not completely used to having smoke filled lungs. It left an aftertaste in her mouth, but she didn’t mind the bitterness. Not today, at least.

If she was going to be honest with herself, she knew what was coming before Éponine had even told her that they needed to talk. For weeks now, she could feel it in the pit of her stomach, watching as Éponine flirted and texted and talked to the same girl, over and over, her face lighting up in a way that it never had because of Cosette. Or maybe it had, at some point, when they were younger and boyfriends and girlfriends didn’t matter as much.

But things change, and Cosette was powerless to stop it.

Éponine told her the story when she first met the girl, at a uni party Cosette didn’t go to because she’d been sick that weekend (if she hadn’t been, would all of this be different?). A girl had entered the kitchen the same time Éponine had, and they both got beers, talking and laughing, and eventually, things escalated to something a lot heavier. Éponine had shown up at Cosette’s house the next day with small bruises on her neck and red marks on the tops of her breasts, and Cosette knew, standing in the doorway, that it was all over from there.

Now, on the wall, Éponine let out another deep breathe. Cosette watched, wondering, for the fifth hundred time, what it would be like to kiss Éponine. Her skin looked soft enough, but her lips were chapped and cracked and sometimes bloody, but Cosette never minded, nor did she mind the roughness of Éponine’s hands when they clasped her own. Sometimes she wondered what they’d feel like, Éponine’s hands, all over her body, or simply caressing Cosette’s pink upper lip gingerly. She was insanely jealous of this new girl, who knew the answers to Cosette’s wondering. That girl never had to wonder. She had Éponine, heart, body, and mind.

Éponine, now, looked over at Cosette. She was frowning slightly, but her eyes were dancing, and Cosette new what was coming.

After a few minutes, Éponine finally spoke, “I wanted to tell you first, that Musichetta and I -- well, we’re dating, officially now, anyway,” she added, her usually rough voice smoothing over slightly as she ended the sentence.

It fell on Cosette’s ears quickly. She was glad Éponine hadn’t beaten around the bush. It was one, two, three; ripping off the band aid, though Cosette would still feel the sting for a while.

“You’ll meet her soon,” Éponine added, smushing the end of her cigarette against the wall. “I wanted you guys to meet earlier, but -- hey, look at me,” she said, noticing Cosette’s lowered gaze. She gingerly reach out and pressed her fingers underneath Cosette’s chin, using them to lift Cosette’s head up carefully, so their eyes could meet. She had no idea the affect this had on her friend; she could not feel the aching, or the want. For years, she never had, as oblivious to it as the Titanic was to its iceberg.

But just because she couldn’t feel it didn’t mean the impact wasn’t made. The touch threatened to allow Cosette’s tears to reveal themselves, or, worse yet, make Cosette reach over and embrace Éponine.

She felt Éponine’s fingers leave her chin and place themselves carefully over her hands, the tenderness of the gesture making Éponine’s hands seem less rough than they were.

“Nothing is going to change, yeah?” Éponine said to Cosette earnestly, not breaking the gaze. “She’s my girlfriend, but _you’re_ my best fucking friend, and have been since _for_ ever, and you’re the most important person to me in the world, and,” she continued, rambling a bit, and Cosette knew it was rehearsed several time before, but that didn’t make it any less earnest. “I just wanted you to know that,” Éponine finished, giving Cosette’s hand a light squeeze.”

Cosette looked away, the breeze blowing strands of her curls in front of her face, hopefully concealing the heartbreak written all over her expression.

It could have been her. Best friend and girlfriend. A double knot, something solid, two is much better than one.

_Isn’t that what a relationship is_? thought Cosette. _The person you love becomes your best friend? So why not vice versa?_

Cosette knew that Éponine was waiting for a response, just as she knew that she should neglect feeling sorry for herself in favor of being happy for Éponine. After all, this was the girl who’d hugged Cosette when she was upset about her mother; this was th girl who let Cosette share her locker, allowing her to take charge and decorate it whichever way she wanted. This was the girl who Cosette loved. If she wanted to be the bigger person, if she really loved Éponine, she would be glad that Éponine had finally found her own love.

Though that didn’t make it any less difficult to stomach.

Cosette finally looked back at Éponine, her face composed, though tears were still threatening to unmask her true feelings. She smiled all the same, and her heart skipped several beats when Éponine returned the grin. It was as bright and wide and beautiful as it had been the first day Cosette met her.

“I know, Éponine,” Cosette finally answered, forcing the corners of her mouth to turn up. “I’m beyond happy for you. I know you really, really like her, and I can’t wait to meet her.”

Éponine immediately leaned in to hug Cosette. It was a tight embrace that Cosette returned, and after a minute, a shiver ran up her spine as she felt Éponine’s lips close to her ear.

“I love you, Cosette,” was what Éponine whispered softly, making Cosette’s heart swell dangerously.

Then it felt heavy, as if someone had filled her arteries with the bricks that the underneath her was made of. The feeling made it hard to talk, but she eventually managed to get out the words, “I love you too, Éponine.”

She, however, meant it in a totally differently way than Éponine did.

That was the thought that nearly did her in.

She felt Éponine’s arms wrap tightly around her waist, and Cosette buried her head into Éponine’s shoulder, her eyes shut tight so she didn’t cry, did not cry. She would not cry, she couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t let herself.

As Éponine kept one hand on Cosette’s waist, her other reaching up to soothingly smoothing over Cosette’s blonde hair as a sister would, Cosette allowed herself one bitterly pitiful thought:

_It could have been me._

_It could have been_ us _._


End file.
